Last week when I went to Vienna for the ASPO conference I happened to stay at the same hotel with my friends from ASPO-Spain, so during breakfast I could train my Castillan. Our talks kept revolving around the crisis, and at some point I said something like: "Dani, this fella Tsipras is promising at the same time to keep Greece in the Eurozone, default on the debt, double the minimum wage and rollback pension cuts. How can anyone believe him?" To which Dani replied: "Desperate people take desperate measures."

The vote for SYRIZA is a vote of desperation, the reflex of a foreclosed future.

Still, I can't possible agree with the conduct of this party, and I'm genuinely concerned of what may happen if they win the election. The letter of intent, which is basically a pre-anouncement of default, was a terrible mistake, that undermines any possibility of success of such line of action. A SYRIZA victory will be taken by the Greek society and foreign investors in general as a default and an exit from the euro (the only way Tsipras has to make good on the largest part of his promises). As Michael Spence put it yesterday, under such scenario everything mobile will simply move away.

The problem is that this will happen with the caretaker government still in place, before Tsipras is sworn in. If this worst case scenario unfolds, Tsipras can simply watch helplessly Greece collapsing, just to inherit the moonscape a few weeks later. At that time, decisions to default or stay in the Eurozone will be irrelevant.